Tempers flare as TDC OKs dredging money for Holiday Isle

OKALOOSA ISLAND — After some of its members angrily blamed a few residents for driving up the cost, the Okaloosa County Tourist Development Council on Thursday unanimously approved spending $3.5 million in county bed tax money for the East Pass dredging/beach restoration project.

That expenditure needs final approval of the County Commission, which likely will consider the issue in January. If approved, the project could begin by early March and be completed by early May.

The project calls for the Steve Hooks LLC dredging company of Westlake, Louisiana, to use a city of Destin permit to dredge about 240,000 cubic yards of sand from the East Pass federal navigation channel.

The channel, which was last dredged in 2014, requires maintenance dredging every few years to allow vessels access to the Gulf of Mexico.

For the upcoming project, most of the dredged sand could be placed on two eroded stretches of beach on Holiday Isle.

Shell’s recent success in the US Gulf of Mexico includes its deepwater Dover discovery on Mississippi Canyon 612, reported last year, near its Appomattox platform. The well was drilled by the Deepwater Poseidon ultra-deepwater drillship. Sources: Shell, Transocean.

In lieu of the traditional shovel groundbreaking, Miami City Commission chair Ken Russell, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and Miami city manager Emilio T. Gonzalez (pictured l-r) perform the ceremonial water toss to mark the start of the first Miami Forever Bond project tackling flooding and sea-level rise. (Photo by City of Miami Office of Communications)